Sanctity Life Sunday: Prayer of Repentance

Almighty God, we bow before You our Creator, You are the One who has given us life and health, talents, gifts and opportunities for service. Every breath we breathe is a gift of Your grace. We acknowledge that You are also the Eternal Judge before Whom each one of us must stand and give an account of our lives. Have mercy upon us. Lord. Do not treat us as we deserve. We plead for Your mercy - for Your grace. Your undeserved favour. For we confess that we are a sinful people and we are part of a nation in rebellion against You.

We have broken Your holy laws.

Our leaders are too proud to bow before you in prayer at the beginning of Parliament.

At state events our leaders have committed idolatry, worshipping other gods who are not God at all.

Your Name is routinely taken in vain on national television and at cinemas and this blasphemy is constitutionally protected and regarded as "entertainment."

The Lord's Day is desecrated every week. What You ordained as a Day of rest and a Day of worship is being commercialised and abused for the worship of pleasure.

Respect for our parents and elders is being undermined everywhere by the laws, the entertainment industry and by the explosion of violent crimes against the elderly.

Every year over 20 000 people are murdered in South Africa and our Justice system is failing to protect the citizens of this land. Most of the murderers who terrorise our people escape being brought to justice. In fact our laws seem to favour the rights of the criminals and all too often criminalise the victims. Have mercy on us Lord.

Selfishness, greed, covetousness and deception are pervasive and we have become a nation infested with corruption and theft. Our Constitution entrenches the rights of pomographers to exploit people made in the image of God for profit - to take what You have made to be holy and perverted it, to take what You designed to be special and made it sordid, to distort what you intended to be private and developed it into a multi million rand exploitative industry. Have mercy on us Lord.

And we must admit that we have the hypocrisy to claim to be a "human rights society" while denying the right to life to pre-bom babies. Forgive us Lord for interpreting the Right to Life to protect guilty murderers from execution but not protecting innocent babies from receiving the death penalty through abortion.

We are ashamed that our society could have become so calloused, careless and cruel as to allow little babies to be poisoned, burned, dismembered, smothered or strangled - through abortion.

We recognise that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. And we must confess that most of us, even in the Church, have shamefully done nothing to protest and work against the legalised slaughter of pre-born babies in South Africa.

You have declared that "Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me." (Matthew 25:45). We recognise that to know the good we ought to do and to fail to do it is sin (James 4:17).

We have sinned. We have not loved You with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, nor have we loved our neighbours as ourselves. We have not done unto others as we would have others do unto us. We have been thoughtless and careless. We have been self-centred and preoccupied with less important things. Forgive us for thinking so much of ourselves and so little ofYou and of our neighbours. Especially on this day _ we confess that we have not loved our unseen, pre-bom neighbours as we ought. Have mercy upon us, 0 Lord.

On behalf of our congregations, communities and nation we repent of the national sin of abortion. May You be merciful and gracious 0 Lord to forgive us our many sins and to bless us with a revival of repentance.

May You raise up many more Christians to fight for the right to life of pre-born babies.

May you grant to mothers going through crisis pregnancies _ grace, comfort, strength and the support of family, friends and congregations _ to choose life that the children may be born and brought up in the love and admonition of the Lord.

Lord, raise up more pastors, elders, deacons and church members to see the needs and to educate and mobilise their congregations to respect the sanctity of life, and lovingly support both mothers and children - especially in crisis situations.

Strengthen the doctors and nurses to resist all pressures to pervert their healing profession from saving lives to taking lives. May the medical profession stand together in resisting the overwhelming pressures to turn them into paid assassins instead of those who are true to their Hippocratic oath.

And we also pray that You may grant that those politicians who worked and voted to legalise abortion in South Africa would come to repentance. And should those guilty of unleashing this abortion holocaust steadfastly refuse to repent, then we pray that You, 0 Lord, may remove them.

May you raise up new leaders who will respect the right to life of even the most helpless members of our society and ensure that babies are effectively protected from the violence of abortion - by law.

Guide each one of us, 0 Lord, as to what we can do to save lives and love our neighbours, for we ask all this in the Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ - Amen.